Ace of Yankee staff is team’s one truly indispensable player

There is no more important player to any contending team in baseball than Gerrit Cole is to the Yankees. Not Aaron Judge, not Juan Soto, not Ronald Acuna, Jr. Not Shohei Ohtani himself. It is Cole, the Yankee without whom they will not be finally going back to the World Series this year. He was their ace last season; he was the ace of the sport; he was a young Clemens. He was that good, someone who turned out to be a horse for this course.

Now there is some news about him out of Tampa, from Aaron Boone, and it is big news because it is not good news about Cole’s right elbow. Of course, it might turn out to be nothing. Or it might turn out to be everything for the 2024 Yankees.

Here is some of what Boone said on Monday:

“(Cole’s) recovery, before getting to his next start, has been more akin to what he feels during the season, when he’s making 100 pitches. When he’s at 45 [pitches] and building to 55, he usually doesn’t have the recovery issues he’s having.”

Boone said it was more discomfort than pain. But here is what New York baseball fans really heard:

Jacob deGrom.

We thought it was just a speed bump when deGrom first talked about having discomfort in his right arm, one of the best in the game and best of his time when strong, the way Gerrit Cole’s has been. It was forearm “tightness” with deGrom when he went on the Injured List three years ago. Eventually we found out that it wasn’t really his forearm. It was elbow. We all know how that played out, both at Citi Field, then in Texas.

It is different, for now, with Cole. It is discomfort in his right elbow, like the manager said. Maybe it really is nothing in the end, spring training soreness that was probably inevitable for someone who has been blessed with good arm and shoulder and elbow health the way Cole mostly has; really is just a speed bump with him, nothing serious to see here, move along. Maybe he will be back to being Cole, sooner rather than later.

But what happened almost as soon as Boone started talking on Monday was, if not the fear of God being struck into the Yankees and their fans, the fear of baseball gods. Lower case “g.” But trouble with a capital “T” if this does turn out to be something serious and something rest can’t cure because only surgery can.

“He usually doesn’t have the recovery issues he’s having. It’s been more of a challenge, more taxing,” Boone said in Tampa. “So, we’re going to get an MRI to see what we’re dealing with here.” No one in the sport has pitched more innings than Cole has pitched since the Yankees signed him to that $324 million contract four years ago. Since he did sign that contract, he has been everything the Yankees could have hoped he would be. He looked like he was going to be the kind of free agent starter, even after his 30th birthday, that Max Scherzer became for the Nationals, when he was every bit the star for them that he had been with the Tigers.

Last season, Cole finally won the Cy Young Award that he should have won with the Astros before he left Houston. He was 15-4 in 33 starts with a 2.63 earned run average and 222 strikeouts in 209 innings. He was the first true Yankee ace since CC Sabathia, who came here in 2009 when he was the free agent pitcher everybody wanted and proceeded to pitch the Yankees to their last World Series title. He accepted the responsibility of his contract (one that fifteen years ago was almost exactly half of what Cole would get), of being a Yankee, of pitching in New York at Yankee Stadium. CC was the one who was everything the Yankees could have hoped he would be, and more.

This is absolutely not to predict the worst for Cole and this MRI, or to expect the worst. But by now, in circumstances like these, baseball fans have become conditioned to expect the worst. That doesn’t make them sky-is-falling alarmists. It is just the way things are. It is the way things were with deGrom, who’d already had one Tommy John surgery before he became one of the great Mets pitching stars of all time. Through it all, especially early on, we kept hearing that it was everything bothering his elbow except what the commercials used to call the heartbreak of psoriasis.

Even after deGrom was the one who became a free agent, the Rangers were confident enough that there was nothing seriously wrong with deGrom to give him a contract for five years and $185 million. He made six starts for the Rangers before he basically walked off the mound one day and into the operating room for his second Tommy John. Now, if there are no further setbacks, he might come back and pitch this summer.

Hope for the best with starter pitchers, and soreness and their discomfort in their arms. But expect the worst. Cole is not just a total star. He is one of the good guys. It is why you hope that the next news for him will be good news. The Yankees can’t afford for it to be bad news. They could survive losing No. 99 or Soto, if not both of them. It doesn’t work that way with Cole. He hasn’t just become a great Yankee. He’s become an indispensable one.